ASEAN ministers vow to combat transnational crime

ASEAN ministers vow to combat transnational crime

Thanaporn Promyamyai, Agence France-Presse, Bangkok

Southeast Asian ministers meeting in the Thai capital vowed on Thursday to speed up an action plan aimed at combating regional transnational crime as their annual talks on the issue wrapped up.

In a joint communique issued at the conclusion of the meeting, ministers voiced concern over rising cross-border crime including terror attacks and said they were committed to strengthening information and intelligence exchange.

"We view with concern the proliferation of transnational crime, including acts of terrorism that threaten the security, peace and stability of our region and therefore reaffirm our commitment to enhance cooperation...," they said.

"We are committed to accelerating the implementation of the work program to implement the ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime," they said, referring to a program they adopted in 2002.

That program calls for cooperation in combating eight areas of transnational crime: trafficking in persons, drugs and arms, sea piracy, money laundering, terrorism and international economic and cyber crime.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministers, who will meet with their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea on Saturday for the first time as a group, said they would in particular cooperate further in curtailing terrorism.

"We reaffirm our resolve to take a comprehensive and coordinated approach in addressing the various areas of transnational crimes that have links to terrorism," their communique said.

The meeting had as a backdrop the ongoing search in southern Thailand for assailants who mounted coordinated daring attacks on an army base and schools Sunday that left four soldiers dead.

Two policemen died a day later as they tried to defuse a bomb. No arrests have yet been made.

Malaysia and Thailand have said they are cooperating to track down the perpetrators.

Earlier Thursday Thai Deputy Prime Minister Bhokin Bhalakula told the ministers that Thailand's strategy of involving communities in its war on drugs could be mimicked by ASEAN to battle transnational crime.

"The state should decentralize and devolve its power to local authorities and people so that they can collaborate in the war against transnational crime," Bhokin said, adding that people's participation should be encouraged while criminal activity was curtailed.

"Thailand for example has consistently followed this policy, recently by declaring the 'war against drugs' and achieved enormous success," he said.